[jboss-as7-dev] distribution name, folder name and JBOSS_HOME

[Dan Allen]

Has a decision been made about whether to rename the distribution and
compressed folder name as follows, or is this topic still open for
consideration?

distribution name: jboss-as-7.0.0.Final.zip
compressed folder name: jboss-as

I strongly encourage this convention to help reinforce the distinction
between the JBoss brand/community and the project. JBoss AS 6 went half way
by naming the distribution jboss-as-6.0.0.Final.zip but leaving the folder
as jboss.

I heard that this change has been deferred until AS 8. However, I think
deferring it will be more painful and potentially upset users in the long
run. We already change the startup script name, the deployment directory
name and the mechanism for hot deployment. Can't we just rip off the tape
all at once and rename the distribution and folder name? Seriously, I think
it would be a huge mistake to let this one go.

Max has already prepared a pull request for the build change:

https://github.com/jbossas/jboss-as/pull/53

I also noticed in the getting started guide that Pete drafted that he
recommends setting JBOSS_HOME before starting the server (though I think
that recommendation has now been removed). However, if you already have
JBOSS_HOME set (let's say for JBoss AS 5), then it's a problem when you try
to run AS 7.

Every release of AS that I download, I get around this by adding the
following to the run.conf (now standalone.conf)

JBOSS_HOME=$DIRNAME/..

That way, JBOSS_HOME is set relative to the startup script I'm executing.I
have yet to find a problem with this approach. For standalone, that seems
*way* simpler. Plus, I can toggle between different "installations" of the
server without having to change my environment variables. I would never want
to start a different instance than for the script I'm executing. That's just
nonsensical.

This last point is probably way too big of a change, but have we considered
changing JBOSS_HOME to JBOSS_AS_HOME. We could meet half way and just
support both, checking first for JBOSS_AS_HOME, then falling back to
JBOSS_HOME.

wdyt?

-Dan

-- 
Dan Allen
Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat | Author of Seam in Action
Registered Linux User #231597

http://www.google.com/profiles/dan.j.allen#about
http://mojavelinux.com
http://mojavelinux.com/seaminaction
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/jboss-as7-dev/attachments/20110615/44882de2/attachment-0001.html